Five Space Video Games to Play Before We Colonize Mars

If you've ever played Sid Meier's Civilization, you'd be familiar with the turn based empire-building strategy game. This time, however, it's about colonizing a planet and dealing with many different computer-controlled alien races that are vying desperately for said planet's resources. The core of the gameplay revolves around the idea that even in space, people will still figure out a space-equivalent for oil. Take that, Avatar.

Universe Sandbox is more of a gravity simulator than a video game. It essentially turns the player into a vengeful god, blowing up planets and learning about gravity under fun circumstances. The game simulates all celestial bodies in our solar system, and also sates the real science fix that a lot of modern space games lack.